reaching for stability
At a graduation party, I was talking to someone about my life and how I found an aim outside of my academic career to give me something achievable. She replied that it sounded like I found some balance.
I understand what she meant, and I think I did find a balance in some sense, perhaps by leaning more outside of my work. Still, upon reflection, what I'm seeking isn't really a work-life balance, but rather an overall stability. I want to feel like a whole person no matter where I am.
deconstructing work-life balance
To me, work-life balance brings up the image of a see-saw teetering back and forth, between the competing requirements of work and life. When it is balanced, it is in an unstable equilibrium and requires constant energy to maintain its place there.
Work-life balance brings to mind the government official Strickland in the movie Shape of Water, who has a high position at work and a family at home, yet does not seem truly satisfied in his overall life and finds both of them to unravel as his anger gets the best of him.
When I try to think in terms of work-life balance, I imagine myself as an employee in the show Severance, living different lives at work and at home with no connection between them, no recollection of knowing anything else between the lives. It affords a disconnect between how I shape my surroundings and communities through work and then how I live within them the rest of the time.
What am I working for anyway?
how i actually live
In truth I am the same person throughout the day. I find fulfillment in my life by doing projects. Some of these projects are through my job, and others are outside. Some impact many other people and others are just for me. It's often hard to cleanly draw the line between personal and professional, as I connect with people and transfer skills across contexts.1
As I stepped into a more corporate environment, it felt like I had to draw a line between my "work" and my "life", but where exactly? I struggled with this distinction.
I learned to place slack in multiple contexts. Within my relationship and in my greater social life, there is room for me to work late on some days to meet work deadlines. Conversely, there is room for me to leave work if I need to support my partner or my friends. Some days, I take 2 hour long lunch breaks just to catch up with friends. It's always been hard for me to follow a 9-5 kind of schedule, so I've just abandoned that notion for myself. There is not much distinction between categories in how I allocate time across my life, I just try to support myself and the people around me as best I can.
reaching for stability
Honestly, I was embarrassed by the way that I mixed everything in my life, as it doesn't fit into the traditional idea of a "work-life" balance. But look, it has been about 7 years now that I've been living this way and perhaps it's time to admit that this is what works best for me. By allowing different aspects of my life to mix in time, the points where I couldn't meet expectations became clearer, so I've learned to prioritize everywhere. I cannot pursue every possible project and support everyone around me equally, so I try save time for the most fulfilling and important projects, for the people I love, and for my own growth.
I am not sure if I have reached a balance in my life. Rather, it feels that my life is a tensegrity sculpture, held stable through the constant tension of the multiple lines within it. As I grow older, these lines will naturally rearrange themselves. What I want most is to arrange my life to achieve stability in the overall structure.
Incidentally, because of the lack of this distinction and because we live in a capitalist society, I think it's totally fair to charge for artistic projects you make for your own fulfillment, like a blog or zine.↩